After much deliberation, we’ve finally decided on our school application list for Max, and it’s finally hit me - we have less than a year before he starts school. Whenever I heard parents saying “I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone” when the time arrived for their child to start school I always felt a bit baffled. It’s 3 and a half years, that’s a reasonable length of time in anyone’s book. But now I completely understand! It feels like only a month or so ago that I can remember Max as a toddler, staggering around, unsteady on his feet. How can he be ready to start school, he still can’t put his own shoes on!

But I know that by the time September rolls around he’ll be ready, and I’ll be there at the school gates, waving him off (or possibly peeling him off me. Let’s hope for the first!). I know he’ll love everything that school has to offer him - he loves learning new things, figuring out how things work, and finding out ‘why’. He loves making friends and socialising with other children. I know he’ll do amazingly in school.

And yet, the selfish part of me will miss him so much. He’s been my little companion for the past 3 and a half years (4, if you count the time I was pregnant!), and he really is the most amazing little guy to have around. We’re just starting to emerge from the tantrum phase and it seems unfair that just as we move past that, I have to hand him over to school.

I love our little adventures together. The ability to just decide that it’s a lovely day so we’ll go for a picnic, or take a spontaneous trip to the beach. Or even just a trip to the M&S Cafe (Max’s favourite place). Seeing his eyes light up with excitement at seeing a squirrel climb a tree; watching him race ahead of me to pick up a conker from the ground; his little hands, digging a hole to plant our spring bulbs in. They’re all just little, everyday moments, and of course I’ll still get them at the weekends. But everyday is just that - every day. I won’t be seeing them everyday anymore.

I’m determined to soak up every minute of these last months together. I want to notice all these little moments, to put my camera down more when we’re out and about, to be less concerned with capturing and more concerned with really seeing. To enjoy my little boy, while he’s still a little boy.